


Post Traumatic

by Meeps



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, PTSD, Post-Series, Serious Illness, Toonshipping - Freeform, character death mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 11:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5415983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meeps/pseuds/Meeps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seto Kaiba comes down with what he thinks is a cold -- but the longer he ignores it, the worse it gets.  Pegasus is obviously not as okay as he'd like everyone to think.  Painful memories are forced up, and he knows he cannot deal with this a second time.  Mokuba realizes that he and Pegasus might actually have something in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Post Traumatic

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by an ask I got on tumblr. I haven't written anything in a year -- this was hard to get out, and took a little over a week.
> 
> It was supposed to focus on Pegasus, but this happened instead. The next chapter will hopefully be Pegasus-centric, as I'm better at writing him. 
> 
> ...Happy holidays! 8D

It had been very subtle the first day.  A cough to ease an itchy throat, and a few sniffles here and there.  Seto had shrugged it off and went about his day, though he did add a glass of orange juice to his schedule.  He had work to get done, and allergies weren’t going to stop him from that.

It was the second day that things started to go downhill.

When he woke up on day two, he could hardly open his eyes, and he felt distinctly like he’d been hit in the face with a baseball bat.  A pained groan slipped from his mouth as he pushed himself up.  His throat was swollen, his sinuses were plugged up tighter than can of caviar, and he was working his way up to a migraine.  He made to rub the crust out of his eyes and then looked at the clock.  He’d slept in three hours.  Great.

With a sigh that was supposed to be exasperated but came out more of a wheeze, the brunet attempted to get out of bed and to his bathroom without too much wobbling, and he was met with lukewarm success.  He flicked on the light ( _ow_ ), and checked himself out in the mirror.  He looked about as good as he felt.  His eyes were glazed over and his hair was matted to his forehead with drying sweat.

The only positive thing that he could think of was that most of his work could be done from home.  That, and how a hot shower would hopefully help him breathe easier.

This continued on for a few days, and though his condition didn’t worsen much, it certainly didn’t get any better.  It seemed to have plateaued off where it was.  Usually if he caught a cold, it would clear up around day three or four.  He couldn’t afford to take a break from work, though, since it was already coming up on mid-December and the release of the newest Kaiba Corp. tech was already pushed back an entire week.  The worldwide Christmas sales were going to more than makeup for it, but he wasn’t done coding it yet.  Somewhere in the wall of text was an error -- more than one if he were being painfully honest --, and it was throwing the entire damn thing off its hinges.  He was about to just pass it off to Mokuba, to see if his brother could spot the problem where he couldn’t due to hours of staring at the screen.  


He finally gave in after he spent the last half an hour reading the same five lines over and over again without even realizing it.  He huffed, and the sound that actually made it out of his throat caused him to him wince.  Seto saved what he had and then shut his laptop before he pushed his chair back and stood up.

With a ringing in his ears and a thick, heavy weight in his head, he found himself back in his chair.  He must’ve stood up too fast.  Finally, a few seconds more, and his vision had come back fully.  Bitterly, he thought about how he couldn’t wait for this damn virus to go away.

Mokuba looked up at him from the island he was sitting at that attached the dining room to the kitchen.  He was playing one of his handheld games, and around him lay the corpses of several soda cans and a bag of chips, which meant that he’d been parked there all day.  “Pegasus called,” he said in attempted nonchalance, but it wavered with just a bit of awkwardness.  This wasn’t the most ideal situation – somewhere along the line, Pegasus and he had become... more than _business_ partners.  Mokuba had given his blessing after realizing that Pegasus was honestly a different man, despite how he may act.

That didn’t erase the memories of Duelist Kingdom, though.  Seto knew that Mokuba always worried things would take a turn for the worse.  Sometimes he did too.

“…Are you sick?” Mokuba asked, shifting on his stool, turning his body to face his older brother.  “You look _awful_.”  


Seto would have liked to brush that subject off and get a cup of coffee before returning to work, but his body really wasn’t in very good shape.  “It’s just a cold,” he said, and then immediately coughed into his elbow.  Talking agitated his throat, but coughing did it more.  The problem fed itself, and it was hard to stop once he started.  It was the deep, painful ones, that sounded more like a barking seal than anything human, and brought up no relief from the brick of phlegm he felt knotting in his chest.

“Are you sure?” Mokuba asked, and Seto was mildly surprised to see that the other was now at his side.  He hadn’t heard Mokuba move through his coughing fit.  “It doesn’t sound like a cold,” the now-teenager urged, clearly concerned.  It was then that Seto realized that he’d hardly left his room for the past week.  Of course Mokuba wouldn’t have known something was off until now.  “Seto, you should sit down.  I’ll make you some tea.”  


Instead of fighting it, the CEO sat down at the small breakfast table that was slightly closer to the kitchen than the dining room was.  “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

Once water was put on the stove, the younger Kaiba went to lean against the wall next to the window.  Despite the fact that the heat was turned on, the snow outside of the glass made the air in the immediate area cold.  Mokuba crossed his arms, for both warmth and to cover his unease.  He was still wearing his pajamas.  “Are you sure you shouldn’t call the doctor?” he pressed after about a minute of silence.

“I’ll deal with it,” Seto promised.  Then he frowned.  “Why did Pegasus call?” he asked, only just now registering the earlier comment.

Mokuba blinked owlishly at him before he seemed to remember the initial greeting he’d given.  “Oh,” he said hesitantly, and he looked down at the wood-panel flooring.  “He said he was calling to check up, because he hasn’t heard from you in a few days.”

Seto scoffed.  “He can’t even go a week,” he muttered, before breaking out into another coughing fit.

“Seto, I really think you should call the doctor right now.”  


“Does it really sound _that_ bad?” the brunet quipped, but he could hardly choke out the words.

Mokuba shot him an increasingly worried look.  “ _Yes_!” he said intensely, as if it were painfully obvious -- and it probably was.  “You sound _horrible_.”  Unfolding his arms and pushing himself away from the wall, the ebony-haired boy brushed his brother’s bangs out of the way before setting his wrist against Seto’s forehead.  His frown deepened.  “You’re cool and clammy,” he said, taking his hand back.  Seto stared hard at the table, and at the dull shine on it that came from the light bouncing off of the snow outside.  He’d thought he might have had a mild fever before he felt the warmth from the other’s skin -- it felt, to him, like _Mokuba_  was the one with a higher temperature.

“It’s a _cold_ ,” he repeated.  Then he looked up at his younger brother.  “Mokuba, I _promise_ I will call the doctor after I drink some tea.”  He’d been sick before, albeit rarely.  He’d had colds before... they just usually didn’t hit him this hard.  He supposed that just came with aging out of his teens.  The all-nighters were getting harder to pull, and it was taxing his body more than it used to.  He didn’t like to admit it, but he was feeling how much he’d aged himself over the years with his poor diet while working, the lack of sleep, and the stress of running a company that had branches all over the world and had thousands of stock-holders.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to take a few days off because he’d caught a bug.  The deadline had passed once already, and he was no closer to finding the breaks in the code.  He’d fixed one yesterday, but unfortunately that only caused four other problems to crop up, like the hydra of computer binary.  He felt angry with himself for getting into this position in the first place, and he felt even angrier for how his body was failing him.  


The tea kettle actually startled him enough to break his train of thought.  Mokuba gave him one last once-over before he jogged into the kitchen to take the water off of the burner.  Seto heard the tea being prepared, and he reached back to pull his cellphone out of his pocket.  He’d had it on silent without vibrate on so that he wouldn’t get distracted from work, so he was surprised to see that he had five missed calls, four voice mails, and three new text messages.  He coughed into his free hand as he opened his phone's call log with his other.  Three were from Pegasus (of-fucking- _course_ he called three times in as many days), one was from his main secretary at Kaiba Corp., and one was from their personal doctor.

This didn’t look good.  The latter never called unless he had an emergency and needed time off.  He went to listen to his voice mails, and as the pre-recorded voice told him what he already knew, Mokuba brought him a large mug of steaming tea, being very careful not to drop it, and using his shirt as a buffer between the hot glass and his hands.  Seto nodded in thanks to him, but the second the steam hit his nose and he breathed it in, he started choking again.  He wouldn’t have been able to hear what the message even said, if it hadn’t started off with an exaggeratedly cheerful,  _“Kaiba-boy!_

_“It’s already the tenth and you haven’t told me when you’re getting off of work!  I know there’s the holiday rush to get ready for, and you’re probably just busy, but I know you can make a few minutes for me.”_  Seto had finally managed to get control of his coughing enough to be able to _hear_  the smirk that he knew was there.   _“Besides, I need you to help me with something.  Call me as soon as you get this!”_  Then the electronic female voice came back to tell him the time and date of that message.  What on Earth did Pegasus need his help for now?  He did feel... calmer, though, after hearing that voice.  It was comforting, somehow, to know that the eccentric man thought of him.  His phone beeped to tell him it was going to play the next message.

_“Hello Mr. Kaiba; I’m so sorry to bother you while you’re at home, but Mr. Kojima called and wants to schedule an emergency meeting.  I need your cooperation in setting this up.  Thank you for your time.”_  


Wonderful.  His mood immediately soured again -- he’d actually completely forgotten to keep up with his phone for the past two days.  He knew he had seen one missed call after he’d decided to head to bed one night, but he never checked it.  This stress and illness was really messing with his head.  The second message was on the eleventh, and now he had to somehow fit a meeting into the time crunch.

_Beep._

_“Kaiba-boy?”_  Pegasus’ voice sounded somewhat doleful.   _“I hope my last voice mail just didn’t go through.  I’d_ really _appreciate it if you called back A-S-A-P.  Besides, I miss your voice.”_  It sounded like the older man was taking on a playful tone to cover up the fact that he was being needy.  Seto actually felt a little sorry for the guy.  


The time and date were listed off again.   _Beep._

_“Ah, hello Mr. Kaiba,”_ came the rushed voice that he recognized as their household’s personal doctor.   _“I’m very sorry, but I have to leave for Osaka immediately.  My mother was in an accident and needs me there.  My train will leave at noon today.  Thank you, and once again I’m sorry this is so sudden.”_  


That message was left today.  Seto pulled the phone away from his ear to check what time it was.  It was almost three in the afternoon, and the man was likely to still be on the train, if he had not _just_ gotten there.  There was almost no way he would be able to come check on him and give him any kind of medicine.  His only option was to go to a local clinic and wait in line with a bunch of other sick patients.  He’d rather spend the next work-week coughing up his lungs, thank you.

He sighed (which, again, came out as a wheeze), and he set his phone down.  “Doctor Yamamoto had to take emergency leave,” he informed out loud, and he sounded pretty annoyed about it.  Was there much more that could go wrong right now?  Actually, he retracted that -- he didn’t need Murphy’s Law to answer his question.

Mokuba pulled out one of the four chairs at the table and slunk down in it.  “What’re you going to do?” he asked seriously.

Seto took a sip of the scalding tea, used to it after having to drink coffee on the go so often in his younger years.  He’d probably permanently damaged some nerves doing that for so long (as he did have some trouble feeling the full blow of temperatures with his mouth), but what’s done was done at this point.  The heat hurt his throat and felt amazing at the same time, and he coughed again, thankfully only _after_ swallowing.  He felt the gulp make its way down into the pit of his stomach where it stayed, and he felt warmth that he didn’t even realize he’d lost coming back to him.  

“I’ll wait it out until he’s back in town,” Seto finally answered.  “There’s nothing else I can do,” he added in defense at the sight of Mokuba’s thinly pressed lips.

“I’ll go with you to wait at a clinic,” the teen said, but he seemed to know that his suggestion would be shot down entirely before he even opened his mouth to say it.  


“I need you to help me with something before I can go to one,” Seto said, steering the conversation slightly.  


Mokuba knew damn well what his brother was doing, but he went with this new topic -- for _now_ , anyway.  “What do you need me to do?” he asked, and a bit of genuine curiosity peeked through his words.  Seto had always made a habit of trying to do everything that needed doing on his own, but despite being both the older brother and acting parent to Mokuba, the brunet knew sometimes he had to back down and be humble.

“Something in the code is completely broken, and I’ve been looking at it too long to see what.”  


A look of understanding dawned on the other’s maturing face.  “Is that why it’s not done yet?” he asked, but he seemed to already know the answer again.  Seto nodded, inwardly berating himself once more, this time for being so stubborn.  For trying to fool himself into believing he wasn’t sick, and could fight his way through it, and for working for so long on his own.

“I already uploaded the document so you can look at it,” Seto added.  He took another drink of tea, and it hurt just as bad going down.  It was getting hard to swallow with how swollen his throat was.  He briefly considered actually going to a clinic, but he pushed that thought away again.  No.  It wasn’t worth it.  He’d do it after the Kaiba Corp. Duel Watch was officially released.  It had the ability to produce holograms, and it kept a digital dueling deck via scanning physical cards.  It also could locate other duelists who also had the watch, and they could text or video chat with one another, or even put out a request for a duel.  He had been working with Pegasus on adding all of the newly released cards into its database, but all of that had been done for weeks now.  Right now, something was wrong with the firewall and it would allow people to get in, mess with the code, and add cards that they had not scanned in.  It was a pretty major flaw, and it was only found in the past weekend prior to this.  That was why the release date was pushed back.  Of course, they could have gone ahead and released it anyway, and just made a downloadable forced update to fix it later -- but it wouldn’t remove the data that had been entered via hacking because there was no way to distinguish that from actual scanned cards.  He _could_ include a factory reset in the update, but that would only annoy players and possibly lose them business, plus he didn’t even want to _think_ about what the critical reviews would be like.  


No, it was much better to postpone the release date to make sure this was fixed and working one-hundred percent.

Also, on a much less-important-but-still-major scale, something was now causing certain cards to no longer show up as holograms.  It was a thing that perplexed even him.  Whatever was causing it was something that he accidentally did himself while trying to fix the intrusive hacking loophole.  He had yet to figure out exactly how it decided which cards met the criteria for being broken, since it wasn’t just one type of card, year of print made no difference, and it wasn’t only certain “species” (such as human-like) of monsters.  He was too foggy-headed to remember all of the different numbers and commands he’d added and removed in the past few days, so it wasn’t as if he could simply retrace his steps.  He wasn’t honestly sure when the files were last backed up, either.

Mokuba was already gone from the room, and Seto heard him call out from down the hall, “I’ll grab my computer and be right back!”

Seto smiled at that, and it was warm and fond.  Then he broke out into coughing again.  He tried to calm the fit down with tea, and it worked as well as one would expect -- if it helped any was up for debate, as it only itched his throat just enough to keep him hacking into hand.  He wished this virus was some sort of physical entity he could fight against instead of having to sit here and be helpless as his body waged a war he could do nothing about on his own.  He sucked it up as best he could.

He had work to do.


End file.
